The History of Labor Unions

After the Civil War, many ideologies developed into the United States of America. Some of these ideologies included the free labor ideology and the producerist ideology. Free labor endorsed the belief that by removing slavery, or any other kind of barrier, everyone had an equal chance to try to get wealth (Farless). The producerist ideology tried to stay to the customary view of society and it stressed the importance of viewing the community instead of an individual (Farless). With these two ideologies, they had an impact on labor. By believing in the producerist ideology, people would be staying with tradition, and that leaves no change for our world. Many laborers wanted change, which led to problems for the laborers.

During the latter part of the 19th century, many laborers faced numerous problems. Some of these problems included, “mechanization of industry, emergence of giant corporations, nationalization of labor, public sentiment greatly admired the ‘Captains of Industry,’ and immigration” (Farless). After years of knowledge, man was introduced to machines. When machines played a part in the latter part of the 19th century, it caused trouble with the laborers. These new machines would replace laborers, which meant more laborers were remaining unemployed and that there were lower wages (Farless). Another problem laborers faced were the introduction to immigrants. Immigrants were coming to the United States of America from foreign land to work. With these immigrants, it kept the wages low because the immigrants were new inexpensive labor (Farless).

With these labor problems, it was no surprise that rebellion was about to emerge between laborers and companies. Some of the rebellions of laborers included the H...

... middle of paper ...

...ion of Labor was a failure. It was successful in organizing workers, besides that I did not read anything that would make the American Federation of Labor a successful attempt to address the problems.

In conclusion, the laborers in the latter part of the 19th century had to face many problems. The problems ranged from being replaced by machines to the introduction of corporations. Even though the laborers had to face these problems, many of them address these problems. They addressed the problems by creating unions and by having strikes. Even if the unions or strikes were successful or not, they laborers always strived for better living.

Works Cited

Tindall, George Brown., and David E. Shi. America a Narrative History. 8th ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2007. Print.

Farless, Patricia. Big Business and the Labor Movement in the 19th Century. Print.